1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to paper trays.
2. Prior Art
Various paper trays are known for holding a stack of paper sheets. U.S. Pat. No. 2,100,720 to Page discloses a paper tray with a base plate and four straight walls defining a rectangular paper holding area. The walls are centered about the longitudinal and traverse medial lines of the holding area, and are spaced from each other to form gaps at the comers of the holding area. The gaps extend short of the medial lines. U.S. Pat. No. 5,005,709 to Stokes discloses a tray with a base and four right-angled walls defining a rectangular holding area. The walls are spaced from each other to form gaps which are centered about the longitudinal and transverse medial lines of the 16 holding area. U.S. Pat. No. Des. 264,352 to Goutchat discloses a tray with a base and two right-angled walls defining a rectangular holding area. The walls are at two diagonally opposite corners of the holding area, and are spaced from each other to form gaps at the other two diagonally opposite comers.
With all the aforementioned trays, paper sheets must be placed onto them by being lowered directly from the top. The trays cannot be used in a vertical position because the sheets will fall out. The wide and tall walls prevent a user from resting a hand on the top sheet for writing. The wide walls limit the grasping areas on the sheets to between the narrow gaps, and make removing the sheets inconvenient. The wide walls also require a relatively large amount of material, so that such trays are more expensive to produce than necessary.
U.S. Pat. No. Des. 246,373 to Crandell et al. discloses a paper tray with a rectangular base, a pair of side walls, and a plurality of end walls. One end of the base is completely unobstructed. The top of the side walls are folded inwardly to retain paper sheets when the tray is positioned vertically. The sheets can only be inserted and removed from the unobstructed end of the base, which is inconvenient. The wide walls also require a relatively large amount of material to produce.